Kingdoms imploding

[Scared Bunny]

I have played for a couple of days now, and in all my games I saw France, England, and Germany implode. France I don't know why, England was myself and I was schizophrenic, crazed, the works, so the kingdom falling apart around me was not much of a surprise. Germany was ruled by an inept 2 year-old, no surprise there, either.

So that nice and dandy, and I understand the mechanism behind the implosion, but:

1) Why are they so frequent?

2) Why does it happen at all?

The last question bothers me, because it's fine for kingdoms to implode, internal struggles where comen then, but considering how the game works it is not to be expected that the kingdom will ever be restored and that is a bit unrealistic.

To the AI the title of King of Germany, is just a title that increases the amount of land the King can have without penalty, makes it that he can have duchies and counts as vassals. For all intents and purposes The King of Germany can be the Count of Alexandria, and not for a sign second will the AI think: "This situation is wrong, I must go back to Europe and take what's mine"

Titles are not bound to land once you have them, I once made a three-county Count in the Baltics the Duke of Atholl. To some extend that's ok, and not ahistorical at all, but there should be limits.

 

[Sera]

This has been discussed extensively in other threads. I can't say anything other than the obvious (running the risk of sounding redundant); CK's AI is shoddy at best. Paradox should re-examine their tendency to release beta-stage games that only become good after several months and patches.

 

[LordLeto]

Making Germany break-up is half the fun, all the pretty colors!

 

[Sera]

Making Germany break-up is half the fun, all the pretty colors!

Hehe, I think Germany can manage breaking up fine, all by its lonesome.

 

[unmerged(21937)]

Well, I think all of you have seen that while Germany and France tend to implode, Byzantium never does. I think this is because AI always wants to revoke lands for it's sons if it has no extra demesne and in Elective Law king tends to have bigger demesne than in Salic and Semi-Salic laws.

 

[Sterkarm]

Also, when someone holds at least 66% of the land to make up a title that someone else holds, they can usurp it (for much, much less prestige and BB), and get a claim on it.

 

[Totmes III]

Well, I think all of you have seen that while Germany and France tend to implode, Byzantium never does. I think this is because AI always wants to revoke lands for it's sons if it has no extra demesne and in Elective Law king tends to have bigger demesne than in Salic and Semi-Salic laws.

This AI King behavior is connected with other problems. Giving away almost all demesne erodes the power base of the king, which leaves him weaker when he starts to revoke titles. Then vassals revolt, and the king is dependant on his other vassals if he wants to retake his former vassal´s lands, and using their troops means risking more revolts.

But this is connected to the fact that the AI doesn´t crusade - if it did, it could use conquered lands to give to sons or sustain a demesne larger than 1 province.

Nor does the AI Kings grant ducal titles, something that could compensate for prestige loss due to landless sons. I actually think that the AI should be less inclined to grant land to all sons, unless it loses prestige or has to large a demesne.

 

[Sera]

But this is connected to the fact that the AI doesn´t crusade - if it did, it could use conquered lands to give to sons or sustain a demesne larger than 1 province.

It is a intricate problem interconnected to many issues it seems. The basic AI is so poor that Paradox had to raise the military tech bonus discrepancy in order for the game to be somewhat challenging. However, the discrepancy is so ridiculously large that catholic crusading in the 1066 scenario is akin to suicide. :wacko:

 

[unmerged(15947)]

in the 1066 bugfix mod the king of Germany usually always gets Heretic in my games and Germany breaks up, but thats usually it, I havent seen any other kingdoms die yet.

 

[Spruce]

the core of the problem is either a bug, multiple wars or a detoration of relations. That bug has been reported by some people, and I've experienced it to - altough very rare. There are also points where the AI fails to make peace in multiple wars - see a bug report from mine - have forgotten about it.

And third is relations detoriating ... that's an interesting one. In one game I had to dance with the devil to keep my dukes and counts on one line after I had become a leper kinslayer. It really consumed tons of resources to hold my vassals at bay. Due to some poor game balancing I had that money.

I would say that "sending gifts" should correct some relations problem,

however this off course is not possible for a king because he might have 20 vassals and giving 20 times 200 gold pieces a year - is difficult to maintain,

so AI kingdoms do implode (altough it also nearly happend to me) - why? I don't know - perhaps they can't afford to keep their relations up when they are in dire straits (mad, leper, kinslayer, etc.).

perhaps there could be an event where a mad or a low stat. ruler is challenged by a throne contesting party (most likely the heir). This can be explained due to the fact that the nation is in trouble due to bad management (like the Englisch mad king).

- poor king abdicates, successor comes into play,
- poor king abdicates but empire falls into total anarchy (inheritance law set to gravelkind so empire is divided),
- poor king keeps on the struggle, nothing changes (the court of the "poor" king fights against the contesting party),

the event may fire when the relations with the vassals have dropped below 10 or 25 - whatever...

so an event "intervention of the opposition to save the kingdom",

I really think that Paradox did a great job in handling the helplessness of mad kings, it could also benefit from some "realm saved by sane heir event",

 

[Chaingun]

I see the main reason for this (except the occassional idiot king), is even cycles that do occur with rebelling vassals and the re-enforcement of those vassals. A few days ago while playing as a French count I saw a very good example in England which by then still was led by Willian the Conqueror.

First one count revolted, probably because of high scutage + the king's borrowing of his regiment for a long duration of time. I'd like to add that he wasn't the only unhappy one; in these situations even more vassals are unlikely to be unhappy for the same reasons, although in this case it was this particular vassal which revolted first. So AI king says: "No problem, I'll just take my troops and annex him", and that happens within a few months.

However, this costed the king some troops and tore upon his strength in general. Since he was in war he still had high scutage activated; thus some more vassals find a reason for revolting. The king beats them back with his own regiments, but by then they start to get depleted so he is forced to mobilize the regiments of the few loyal vassals he has left. These vassals then start to get unloyal, and the king's personal forces have by now become totally destroyed; hence vassals find even greater reasons for rebellion. At this point the entire kingdom implodes with only a few elect family member vassals that remain loyal. In fact I observed this as a very powerful duke of Sweden - as long as I remained loyal the kingdom remained intact even though I never lent the king my troops. As soon as I turned king of Denmark the entire kingdom imploded because of oppertunistic vassals declaring war on their king.

I can't confirm another issue that is related to reputation, because I do not know whether the AI cheats with it as well. It might very well be so however that all these annexations of count and dukes left and right cause the king's reputation to sky drop. In response to this vassals' loyalities drop even further.

It doesn't take much to realize that this circle is what kills off kingdoms in CK. However, in other threads I have also stated that there are more problems that compound into the fact we don't see more kingdoms. These have been mentioned in this thread and they include the fact powerful AI dukes will have a very hard time to work towards a king title. That is, if one title theoretically could be created it will not by the AI because the AI will never be able to gather enough of the required land. Another cause which is related to limits on expansion then is the piety issue; a crusader trait + an AI that crusades very infrequently is murderous when it comes to eliminating bad repuatation caused by expansion and that causes loyalty drops.

 

[spite]

I think Germany should fall apart more often. It was by FAR the least centralized state in Europe during the time of the game. Not only did the electoral system contribute to this, but so did the disastrous dual-crown nature (King/Emperor) and utter dependency on the Papacy to grant the Emperor title, which led to numerous wars with the Pope - and the accompanying excommunications.

 

[Spruce]

perhaps the AI should take the presence of disloyal vassals as a reason to sue for peace. Better to give away one province instead of losing all,

now - wasn't that some wise advice from one of our moderators ? - which is off course true,

still - I'm puzzled about the AI doing nothing. Instead of sending his army to march - it stands there and then a year later the soldiers start to move,

perhaps this means the AI is not handling the armies under his command very effective this causes relation drop with some other vassals etc. etc.

 

[Sera]

leper kinslayer.

Too funny. I might not have much fun with CK at present, but atleast I have fun reading about all you guys with enough self-dicipline not to reload when something really bad happens. And it seems the rulers go bonkers all the time, don't it?

 

[Chaingun]

perhaps the AI should take the presence of disloyal vassals as a reason to sue for peace. Better to give away one province instead of losing all,

now - wasn't that some wise advice from one of our moderators ? - which is off course true,

still - I'm puzzled about the AI doing nothing. Instead of sending his army to march - it stands there and then a year later the soldiers start to move,

perhaps this means the AI is not handling the armies under his command very effective this causes relation drop with some other vassals etc. etc.

Yes, I think the AI needs to be program to recognize whenever a "sacrifice" is needed to ensure survival. This will not save kingdoms in the long run however unless the AI also gets to know how to do classic empire-building and doesn't learn to recognize the threat of low vassal loyalty before it's too late. Perhaps AI counts should also try to build big alliances before DOWing when at 0 loyalty, because it tends to be collective suicide when the liege still is strong...

The tactical issues that do exist for the AI are much less severe so I would like to see improved strategic AI first (along with the UI improvements, economy and piety balancing that I've argued for a lot as well).

 

[Matija]

Well, I think all of you have seen that while Germany and France tend to implode, Byzantium never does.

Nope, Byzantium imploded in my game and it was not because of my actions.

 

[Spruce]

Too funny. I might not have much fun with CK at present, but atleast I have fun reading about all you guys with enough self-dicipline not to reload when something really bad happens. And it seems the rulers go bonkers all the time, don't it?

well - I killed a relative and then god punished me - Johan said it's coincidence, however I don't buy that answer !

 

[TheDarkside]

In every game I play the Kingdom of Hungary implodes then the Arabs take advantage and clean up after the civil wars destroy Hungary's armies.

 

[Spruce]

Yes, I think the AI needs to be program to recognize whenever a "sacrifice" is needed to ensure survival. This will not save kingdoms in the long run however unless the AI also gets to know how to do classic empire-building and doesn't learn to recognize the threat of low vassal loyalty before it's too late. Perhaps AI counts should also try to build big alliances before DOWing when at 0 loyalty, because it tends to be collective suicide when the liege still is strong...

The tactical issues that do exist for the AI are much less severe so I would like to see improved strategic AI first (along with the UI improvements, economy and piety balancing that I've argued for a lot as well).

not to mention the fact that loosing some county is quite different from a rebelling duke. A rebelling duke (for kings) should be high priority. In my games I have the tradition to hand the most powerfull duchy to my heirs - so in times of need - the strongest duke is also the most loyal one,

perhaps another lesson for the AI, seems reasonable?

 

[unmerged(17664)]

the core of the problem is either a bug, multiple wars or a detoration of relations. That bug has been reported by some people, and I've experienced it to - altough very rare. There are also points where the AI fails to make peace in multiple wars - see a bug report from mine - have forgotten about it.

And third is relations detoriating ... that's an interesting one. In one game I had to dance with the devil to keep my dukes and counts on one line after I had become a leper kinslayer. It really consumed tons of resources to hold my vassals at bay. Due to some poor game balancing I had that money.

I would say that "sending gifts" should correct some relations problem,

however this off course is not possible for a king because he might have 20 vassals and giving 20 times 200 gold pieces a year - is difficult to maintain,

so AI kingdoms do implode (altough it also nearly happend to me) - why? I don't know - perhaps they can't afford to keep their relations up when they are in dire straits (mad, leper, kinslayer, etc.).

perhaps there could be an event where a mad or a low stat. ruler is challenged by a throne contesting party (most likely the heir). This can be explained due to the fact that the nation is in trouble due to bad management (like the Englisch mad king).

- poor king abdicates, successor comes into play,
- poor king abdicates but empire falls into total anarchy (inheritance law set to gravelkind so empire is divided),
- poor king keeps on the struggle, nothing changes (the court of the "poor" king fights against the contesting party),

the event may fire when the relations with the vassals have dropped below 10 or 25 - whatever...

so an event "intervention of the opposition to save the kingdom",

I really think that Paradox did a great job in handling the helplessness of mad kings, it could also benefit from some "realm saved by sane heir event",

This is good suggestion. Maybe a prestige hit that hurts but would be better then continuing with current king.


Mort